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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25600210">Let Our Souls Burn Bright</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bsidianFire/pseuds/0bsidianFire'>0bsidianFire</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Static Tuned in to Reason [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy XIV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Au Ra Xaela (Final Fantasy XIV), Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Diplomacy, First Meetings, Gen, Headcanon, Magic, Theorycrafting, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2019, Worldbuilding, desert life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:20:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,250</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25600210</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bsidianFire/pseuds/0bsidianFire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>To leave the Nhaama Desert, Kharagal has to pass by the Dotharl. The cost of traveling through them? Helping Sadu Dotharl out with a problem.</p><p>For FFXIVwrite2019 - Prompt #17: Obeisant</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Static Tuned in to Reason [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/860852</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Let Our Souls Burn Bright</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Dotharl Khaa appeared in the distance, Kharagal landed her yol and started walking towards it. It would do no one any good to see her come flying into Dotharl airspace without permission.</p><p>She was met outside the camp by a scouting party on yolback. It was led by a woman her own age with long white hair and a mage’s staff on her back. “I am Sadu of the Dotharl,” the woman said. “Who are you and what are you doing in our lands?”</p><p>Kharagal swallowed down her desire to be confrontational. “I am Kharagal of the Meirqid. I’m just passing through to the steppe.” Needling the Dotharl would be suicide.</p><p>“Hmph.” Sadu dismounted from her yol and walked over to Kharagal. She took Kharagal’s face in her hands and held it still while she looked into Kharagal’s eyes for several long seconds. Abruptly, she let go of Kharagal’s face in exchange for grabbing Kharagal’s upper arm and turned back to the rest of her scouting party. “She will not be giving us any trouble.” Sadu jerked her head in the direction of the desert. “Continue on the route and then head back to the khaa. I’ll bring her in myself.”</p><p>The yols took off, leaving Sadu and Kharagal alone. Sadu watched them as they gained altitude. “Come with me,” she said and walked towards the khaa, pulling Kharagal along behind her. “There is a favor I would ask of you in exchange for our hospitality.”</p><p>“What kind of favor?” Such dealings were common in the desert.</p><p>Sadu laughed. “Nothing you have not already done before.” She stopped walking and looked around at where they were. The khaa was a ways off and any yol were no more than pinpricks in the sky. She nodded to herself and looked Kharagal dead in the eye. “You know of how we can see the souls of those newly born?”</p><p>Kharagal nodded. Everyone knew that. It was part of what made the Dotharl so dangerous. Not only did the Dotharl know they would always be reborn, they also had generations of knowledge about where their talents lay and didn’t have to waste time learning that from scratch.</p><p>“Well, some of us can see the souls of people no matter how old they are. And I am one such person.” For an instant Sadu looked furious. “One of our hunters, Maqali, left on a hunting trip. He returned alone and his soul was not the same. It was green like grass when he left and when he returned it was as if someone had smeared pitch all over him. And ever since then, he has not been himself.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” It sounded like one of the old legends… but those often were the stories to pay the most attention to.</p><p>“He knows everything he should know. But he now challenges people he once thought of as brothers, and is trying to get into leadership positions he had no desire for when he left.” Sadu shook her head in frustration. “And something is wrong with how he fights. He did not use aether so liberally as he does now.”</p><p>“What do you need me to do?” Although Kharagal had a feeling she already knew what it was.</p><p>Sadu grinned. “I need you to help me kill him. He knows how the rest of us fight from before he changed, but he will not know of how you fight.” She pointed to a jumble of rocks to the west of Dotharl Khaa. “That is where we keep our khun chullu. Go there and wait for me to come with whatever is using Maqali’s body. And then… keep him distracted while I ready my magics.” Sadu stroked the focus of her staff. “What say you?”</p><p>Kharagal nodded. “I’ll do it.” Asking outsiders for help taking down political rivals within the tribe in exchange for hospitality was not unheard of. But Kharagal had a feeling Sadu wasn’t trying to do that. It wasn’t necessary for Sadu to come up with a story about someone being possessed by something just to get Kharagal to go along with her.</p><p>“Good,” said Sadu. She let go of Kharagal’s arm and mounted her yol.</p><p>“Just one question,” Kharagal called up to Sadu. “What color is my soul?” If Sadu got it right, then she probably wasn’t lying about what was going on.</p><p>Sadu laughed. “Your soul is the purple of the mountains at dusk; it must burn like lightning when you fight!” Sadu’s voice was filled with glee. “And you will need that in the coming battle!” She gave her yol a signal and it took off towards Dotharl Khaa.<br/>
Kharagal stood speechless for a minute. That was almost exactly what Udgan Toragana had said her soul was like.</p>
<hr/><p>“–are attuned to things beyond other’s sight.”</p><p>In her hiding place behind one of the khun chullu, Kharagal tensed at a man’s voice. It was probably Maqali, but she needed to hear Sadu’s to make sure.</p><p>“Really?” It was Sadu. “Like the color of–”</p><p>Kharagal whirled out from behind her hiding place and cast Bio and Miasma at the aether where the man’s voice was. She followed it up with Fester. Thunder boomed from somewhere and Kharagal saw lightning fly from Sadu’s staff and into the man.</p><p>“What!?!” the man hacked out as he twitched with electrical seizures and choked on bile. “How can this body fail me so quickly?”</p><p>“I knew there was something wrong with you, the moment you came back,” Sadu snarled. “Distract him for me.” Sadu began gathering aether in her staff’s focus, and the khun chullu around them began glowing with aether as well.</p><p>The man bared his teeth at Sadu and somehow teleported behind her in a cloud of black ather. He held out a hand and began focusing aether in it for something</p><p><i>No.</i> Kharagal cast Ruin at the man which caused him to flinch long enough to close the distance between him and her. Kharagal pulled out the knife Aruktai had made sure she knew how to use. An elbow to the man’s back caused him to topple over leaving him open. She sliced down the back of his knee, hoping it was enough to throw him off balance.</p><p>It was. Kharagal had barely got off another Bio and Miasma spell when there was a shout from Sadu. Kharagal looked up to see what looked like a giant red crystal of aether bearing down on them all. Streaming up to the red crystal was aether from Sadu and all the khun chullu. Before Kharagal could do anything, the crystal slammed into the ground, releasing a shock-wave of heat and fire. Then there was silence.</p><p>“Ah! That was glorious!” Sadu proclaimed. She laid down in the shade of a khun chullu, breathing hard. Kharagal went to sit down next to her.</p><p>Kharagal got out a water skin and took slow sips from it. “That a big enough favor for you?” She held out the water skin to Sadu.</p><p>Sadu took the skin from her without even bothering to look at it and drank. “Yes.” She eyed the charred remains of the body. “We will finish burning it and head back to the khaa. We do not want to give it a chance to come back.”</p><p>Kharagal vehemently nodded. “You have no complaints from me there.” The idea of something possessing a body to make use of it was disturbing, to say the least.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>What’s going on here is that a minor Ascian decided to possess someone and mess around with the Dotharl (and the Xaela in general hopefully). Sadu picked up on it right away, but needed someone the Ascian hadn’t seen fight to be a wild card.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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